It Was Me Who Did Not Like It

You said it again on Sunday and this time you heard yourself.

They will not go out in this.

And somewhere between saying it and putting the plates down, a small unwelcome thought arrived and would not leave: is that true, though.

Because when you actually go through them, one by one, your eldest does not care about rain in the slightest. Your youngest actively likes it. The middle one complains about everything equally and would complain indoors as well.

So who is the person in this house who does not want to be cold and wet.

That question has been sitting there since Sunday, and you have not enjoyed it, and I want to say something about it before you decide what it means about you.

Search me, and know my heart

There is a prayer at the end of Psalm 139 that asks for exactly the thing that arrived on Sunday uninvited.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24, King James Version)

Search me, and know my heart.

Now look at who is asking. This is the same man who has just spent twenty two verses saying that God knows his sitting down and his rising up and his words before he speaks them. He already knows he is entirely known.

So the prayer is not: find out about me. It is: show me what You already see.

You are asking to be shown rather than being caught out, and it was never an exposure that this psalm is describing. Psalm 139:23 asks for the searching from somebody who already knows he is fully seen, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as safety rather than as a spotlight.

And notice how the prayer ends. Not with a verdict. Lead me in the way everlasting. The searching is asked for in order to be led, which means the whole point of seeing something is that there is somewhere to go next.

You have been shown something in order to be led somewhere, and it was never in order to be sentenced. The written word ties the searching to the leading in the same breath, and the Spirit of God is what stops an honest look turning into a bad evening.

An honest preference is not a fault

Now let me deal with the discovery itself, because I think it has already begun to be treated as a moral failing and it is not one.

You do not like being cold and wet.

That is not a sin, it is not a weakness, and about half the adults in your street would say the same if anybody asked them. There is nothing to repent of in a preference about temperature.

What is worth looking at is not the preference. It is that it has been traveling under somebody else's name for about two years.

Owning it is not a confession, and a preference of your own is allowed to be named out loud.

You are not discovering a fault, and it was never a character problem to dislike being cold. Psalm 139 asks for the searching in order to be led rather than in order to be judged, which is exactly why the Spirit of God can show a woman something without it costing her anything.

And here is why the mislabeling matters, and it is not about honesty in the abstract. While it was their objection, nothing could be done about it. You cannot negotiate with somebody else's preference. The moment it is yours, it becomes a thing you can actually decide about, which is a great deal more freedom than you had on Sunday.

Say it out loud and go anyway

So here is the practical part and it has two halves, and the first half is four words.

Say it out loud, to the room: I am the one who does not like it.

You are able to say that without anything collapsing, and it has never once cost a mother anything to be accurate in her own kitchen. The passage asks for the searching and then asks to be led, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman saying a true sentence in front of her own children.

Expect them to find it funny. That is fine. It is quite funny.

Then the second half: go anyway, for ten minutes, not because your preference does not matter but because now it is a preference rather than a policy, and a preference is a thing a person can decide to act against on a given Tuesday.

And on some days, do not go, and say that plainly too: I do not fancy it today, we are staying in. That is honest, and it is a decision, and it is a completely different thing from two years of attributing it to children who never said it.

You are able to have a preference and still open the door, and it has never once been hypocrisy to act against your own inclination. Psalm 139:24 asks to be led in the way everlasting after the searching, and the Spirit of God is the one who is out on a wet street with a woman who does not especially want to be there.